The latest LEGO is plenty of fun, but it's constantly hampered by a lot of déjà vu and co-op problems.
+ Same great and clean LEGO visuals with the Pirates of the Caribbean theme
+ Offers a great amount of replay value
Negative
- New offline co-op camera is absolutely horrendous
- Story is difficult to follow if you aren't familiar with the source material
- Still too much of the same LEGO, with same strengths and flaws
Traveler's Tales LEGO series has taken us to a galaxy far, far away, searching for lost treasures and under the black cap in order to capture a few villains in Gotham City along with some other stops. In short, the LEGO series has seen a lot of different environments, altering them to be more family friendly and combining them with LEGO blocks. The latest, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean stays too true to the proven formula that with this installment starts to show its age.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean follows the story of Jack Sparrow and his tales of the four films with over 70 characters to use. The series remains a wordless, dialogue less series that adds goofy humor to its numerous cutscenes adding a twist to the films, and as such unless you have a decent idea of the film's plot, you are constantly questioning what they are doing, and for instance why the hell are there a pig and a chicken. The game's story doesn't do justice to the films it's based on. It's confusing and the humor here feels forced and unfitting. Other usual things have been kept such as the chance to replay levels with the characters you want in Free Play and the fact that all four films are unlocked from the beginning, eliminating the forceful idea of playing all films to get to the one desired.
At its heart, LEGO Pirates is essentially the same as every single other LEGO game before it, with a few tweaks. So any fan of the series knows most that this game delivers. New additions include the fact that Jack Sparrow can search for hidden treasures, the ability to swim and use barrels to go underwater. But the core gameplay has been barely touched. Through most levels you beat and destroy often respawning enemies with combat that is still super easy and straightforwardly uninvolving and puzzles that now border on simply finding a switch or something to move an object and switch between characters to perform an action only that particular character can do. Some of the puzzles are complex and on occasions illogical enough to make you go around in circle aimlessly searching for an item to pick from the ground and put somewhere, which is wholly a waste of time. Between areas, you travel through open spaces filled with LEGO to destroy or build with levels full chocked of hidden items, including flags to raise, very difficult mini kits to find, small ships and others. The secrets of the game are well hidden so each level may require a second or third go for those hungry to discover the game's treasures. The good thing is that the formula can still be addictive enough to make you play yet another level.
The LEGO gameplay had proven itself from the beginning to be a family friendly and entertaining game. But some problems have waltzed their way into this installment. The fixed camera still obscures some areas and is not of help at all at times. The AI in the game is still quite poor. Enemies respawn non-stop sometimes and the friendly AI is awful. The friendly AI follows you into deadly traps, and even continuously falls into the same trap and never reaches you unless you change area. But the biggest problem of LEGO Pirates is the offline co-op. For starters, forget the idea of playing online because there is none. The drop in/drop out offline co-op allows up to two player to play together. It is always fun to play with a friend and solve puzzles together but there is a problem, the camera. Now no one will be left off screen or the camera won't focus on one player nor spread out so much that no one can see. The screen splits in half in accordance to where the players have gone, sometimes vertically and sometimes horizontally and sometimes diagonally. The view merges when the players are together. This whole process is a disaster, occasionally a headache inducing progress of forcing the other player to stay with me on screen. Okay, this kind of camera allows both to see where their respective player is, and it's at times a brilliant idea but it ultimately more trouble than goodness and leads to many frustrations, especially platforming and makes objects and key items impossible to see. I doubt it can be done in any other unfortunately which is a shame. The co-op idea was a great idea before and it's still fun if you can mind that pesky camera.
One of the traits LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean kept is the simple, clean good looking visuals. It's the same, slightly better looking LEGO with a pirate theme set for Jack Sparrow's world. Environments have LEGO trees, LEGO enemies, LEGO blocks and much more and all the characters are LEGO character of course. It's still the charming and colorful LEGO, which in the case of the series is a good thing. Cutscenes are goofy which is not very fitting for this game as it was before. It fails to capture that particular humor the real-life films have. But like before, this game offers absolutely no insight on the source material, little explanation on how to play the game and help only the first time to solve a puzzle and zero dialogue. Most of the game is made up of good soundtrack and the same sound effects.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is more of the same that fans will dig in immediately. That means there is still a very good amount of replay value and hidden secrets to discover with a lot of characters to unlock. But the more of the same formula of Lego Pirates of the Caribbean along with some other unresolved problems prevent it from reaching its full potential making it one of the most disappointing LEGO games thus far. This series will soon be in a serious need for a major overhaul.
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Graphics = 8.1
A very good job for a Wii title. Still the same looking LEGO with a pirate theme.
Sound = 7.2
Good soundtrack naturally applies perfectly for the game. Same sound effects.
Presentation = 6.5
Odd humor, slightly long loadings, awful AI and a terrible co-op camera. Not to mention no dialogue, little explanation and it has a lot of recycled material. No online.
Gameplay = 7.5
It's the LEGO of the past with the same simplistic combat and some frustrating puzzles. Still addictive though.
Story = 7.0
Need to have some knowledge on Pirates of the Caribbean to understand the scope of the event or simply go with the humorous flow of the game. You'll find plenty of replay value, a lot of it.
OVERALL = 72 / 100
The latest LEGO is plenty of fun, but it's constantly hampered by a huge amount of déjà vu and co-op problems.